I Never Give Excuses – Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola believes that big clubs are often forced to pay excessively for quality players but says the amount is even bigger when dealing with Premier League clubs.

The Manchester City boss has spent close to £200 million on new players this summer — four of which cost more than £40m.

Guardiola mentioned last season that he wanted more English players at City but he has only added defender Kyle Walker from Tottenham and said the domestic transfer market is even crazier than Europe and the rest of the world.

“When you go to Germany, Spain, Italy to buy — it happens with United, Chelsea, all the big teams — it’s £10-£15m more expensive. But if you go to England it’s £20-£25m more expensive,” the Spaniard told a news conference ahead of City’s Premier League opener with Brighton & Hove on Saturday.

“Buying from the same league is more difficult. We were able to buy Kyle and there are other English players I’d like to have but we are so happy with what we’ve done.”

“I have a lot of respect for the players I had, I never complained for one bad game or bad defeat, making excuses, never, even in Germany I never said that, never in my life I make an excuse about what happened,” he added.

“Of course now the full-backs are younger, they have energy in their legs and we are going to use them. Kyle is so energetic, Mendy is such an energetic player, and Danilo too.”

“The season that happened wasn’t just about what happened in our box. We just made it for 60-70 percent for the chances we created and that’s poor,” he said.

“Of course we tried to buy good defenders to defend the duels, good situations. It depends on many other circumstances but we’ve tried to buy good defenders but also creative players and strikers to score more goals.”